Life by Chocolate CupcakesServes 18Ingredients:Ree | The Pioneer WomanDessertsCUPCAKES2 cups Sugar2 cups All-purpose Flour1/4 teaspoon Salt1/2 cup Buttermilk2 whole Eggs1 teaspoon Baking Soda1 teaspoon Vanilla2 sticks 1 Cup Butter4 Tablespoons (heaping) Cocoa Powder1 cup Water, Boiling18 whole Hershey's Kisses, UnwrappedCanned Pitted Cherries (optional)GANACHE8 ounces, weight Bittersweet Chocolate1 cup Heavy Cream6 Tablespoons Corn Syrup2 teaspoons Vanilla ExtractInstructions:Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 18 muffin cups with baking spray.
To make the cake batter, combine flour, sugar, and salt. Set aside.
In a separate container, combine buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir to combine and set aside.
In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and stir to combine. Add boiling water, allow to bubble for a few seconds, then turn off heat.
Pour chocolate mixture over flour mixture. Stir a few times to cool the chocolate. Pour buttermilk mixture over the top and stir to combine.
Pour 1/4 cup cake batter into each muffin cup. Lightly set one kiss in the middle of each cupcake; do not press down.
(Alternately, you can add 3 canned, pitted cherries to each muffin cup before adding the batter.)
Bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then remove cupcakes and allow to cool on a baking rack.
To make the ganache, heat cream and corn syrup over medium heat. Chop chocolate and add to a bowl. Add vanilla to cream mixture, then pour cream mixture over the top of the chopped chocolate. Whisk together until melted, smooth, and glossy.
Dunk cupcakes in ganache. Allow to cool and set before serving.Cook time: PT20MPrep time: PT20M

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Life by Chocolate

Enough of this talk of death. Chocolate is a life-giving elixir! Without it, where would we all be?

Oh…we’d all be skinny, you say?

Well, I guess you have a point. Without chocolate, we’d all be skinny. But you know what? We wouldn’t be happy. Did you know that studies have proven that consuming a very small amount of dark chocolate once a day has a more profound affect on mild to moderate depression than prescription serotonin inhibitors? Now, I wouldn’t necessarily advise anyone to stop taking his meds in favor of the dark stuff. At the very least, it suggests to me that somehow, somewhere in the history of humankind, our bodies did once require chocolate in order to maintain psychological homeostasis. Then, over a period of centuries, we drastically departed from the food chain and started eating things like chicken nuggets and Chester’s Puffcorn, and it completely confused our bodies.

I’m here today to take one step back toward where we were meant to be.

Plus, skinny is highly overrated. Who ever said sternums should be visible, anyway?

Although…although I would like to see my hipbones again before I croak. I miss them so.

The Cast of Characters (for the cupcakes): flour, sugar, butter, salt, vanilla, buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and cocoa. (Forget the mint extract I stuck in there. I was going to flavor the batter slightly with mint—which you certainly can do—but decided against it this time.)

Pure and unadulterated goodness.

Oh, and Hershey’s kisses. Don’t ever forget those.

Begin by bringing 1 cup of water to a boil.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder.

Stir the mixture till it’s combined…

Then pour in the boiling water.

Let it bubble up for a second, then turn off the heat and set this mixture aside.

In a separate bowl, mix flour…

Sugar…

And salt.

Stir to combine.

In a separate container, mix 1/2 cup of buttermilk, 2 eggs…

(News Flash: if you don’t have buttermilk, just measure a little less than 1/2 cup milk, then top it off with white vinegar. Instant buttermilk!)

Add 1 teaspoon baking soda…

And 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Mix it all together, then set it aside.

Now it’s time to combine it all! Pour the chocolate mixture over the flour mixture…

Stir it gently to slightly combine the mixture, and to cool the chocolate before adding the egg mixture.

Now pour in the egg mixture…

And stir it gently to combine.

What you’re looking at here is my standard Chocolate Sheet Cake recipe. We’ll be doing a different icing for these cupcakes, but I’ve simply found no better batter when it comes to chocolate cake. It’s moist and chocolaty and versatile…and extremely difficult to mess up, which means it’s right up my alley.

Spray a muffin tin with baking spray.

Add 1/4 cup of batter to each cup.

Then peel a bunch of Hershey’s Kisses…(of course, it would help to do this ahead of time.)

Then lightly set a Kiss in the middle of each cupcake.

Don’t press; just let it naturally sink.

Now bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Yum…

Yum…

Yum! Set them on a rack to cool.

Just for fun, here’s another little variation.

Plain, pitted cherries—not cherry pie filling.

Place three cherries in the bottom of each cup…

Then just pour 1/4 cup batter right over the top.

Bake them for 21 to 22 minutes. (The cherries add a little moisture, which sometimes requires a slightly longer baking time.)

Most importantly: when this happens, don’t fret…rejoice!

Then lick it up.

And now, for the serotonin-inhibiting part: we’re going to make ganache!

It’s easy as pie. Measure 1 cup of heavy cream. No substitutions; the fat is essential.

Finally, just pour the warm cream mixture over the top of the chopped chocolate.

And whisk it together until the chocolate’s melted and the mixture is smooth and glossy.

Now, just dunk the cupcakes upside down in the ganache.

You could certainly just pour ganache over the top of them…but I hadn’t eaten enough dark chocolate yet to have the psychological fortitude to clean up the mess. But if you’re working with a layer cake or something with a larger surface area, pouring the ganache is the best method.

After you dunk them, just turn ’em back over and set them on a cooling rack to set. Notice my reflection in the cupcakes? That’s the beauty of ganache; it’s like a mirror!

Now, you can just stop here if you’d like. I sort of like leaving the bottom uncoated; you’re getting plenty of dark chocolate flavor from the ganache on top, and it’s less effort. But it you’d like to dunk the bottom half, just allow the ganache on top to set a little bit…then dunk the bottom. Just keep in mind that you’ll have to warm up the ganache a bit so it won’t be too gloopy.

An alternate method is to dunk the base first…

Then spoon the ganache over the top.

These are the cupcakes with the cherries inside. They’re a little lumpier.

Lumpy = delicious.

And that’s it, my loves. Just a simple, beautiful chocolate cupcake with comforting, life-giving properties. They can be an after-school treat or a fancy dinner party dessert. Serve one of these warm on a plate with coffee ice cream or a big pile of freshly whipped cream with a little mint leaf for garnish, and you won’t know what hit you.

In a separate container, combine buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir to combine and set aside.

In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and stir to combine. Add boiling water, allow to bubble for a few seconds, then turn off heat.

Pour chocolate mixture over flour mixture. Stir a few times to cool the chocolate. Pour buttermilk mixture over the top and stir to combine.

Pour 1/4 cup cake batter into each muffin cup. Lightly set one kiss in the middle of each cupcake; do not press down.

(Alternately, you can add 3 canned, pitted cherries to each muffin cup before adding the batter.)

Bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then remove cupcakes and allow to cool on a baking rack.

To make the ganache, heat cream and corn syrup over medium heat. Chop chocolate and add to a bowl. Add vanilla to cream mixture, then pour cream mixture over the top of the chopped chocolate. Whisk together until melted, smooth, and glossy.

In a separate container, combine buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir to combine and set aside.

In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and stir to combine. Add boiling water, allow to bubble for a few seconds, then turn off heat.

Pour chocolate mixture over flour mixture. Stir a few times to cool the chocolate. Pour buttermilk mixture over the top and stir to combine.

Pour 1/4 cup cake batter into each muffin cup. Lightly set one kiss in the middle of each cupcake; do not press down.

(Alternately, you can add 3 canned, pitted cherries to each muffin cup before adding the batter.)

Bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then remove cupcakes and allow to cool on a baking rack.

To make the ganache, heat cream and corn syrup over medium heat. Chop chocolate and add to a bowl. Add vanilla to cream mixture, then pour cream mixture over the top of the chopped chocolate. Whisk together until melted, smooth, and glossy.